Resurrected Bodies

“The New Testament is emphatic that the physical body has a role to play in the life to come. The body’s eternal significance affects the way we use it in the present.”

The hope of bodily resurrection is one of the fundamental promises of the Christian faith. God redeems our body as well as our soul (1 Cor. 15:51–53). The capstone of the believer’s redemptive experience will be when the believer’s spirit is reunited with a resurrected and transformed body.

But the Bible’s view of our bodies also speaks to the present. Although we have not yet received the body that will be ours in the resurrection, transformation has already begun. For anyone who is in Christ, “the new creation has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). This new creation includes the work of the Holy Spirit whose power is experienced “in your inner being” (Eph. 3:16). His presence and power motivate us to live in a way that pleases God “whether we are at home in the body or away from it” (2 Cor. 5:9).

Scripture’s promise of bodily resurrection combined with the indwelling presence of God’s Spirit obligates us to “put to death the misdeeds of the body” by God’s power (Rom. 8:13). As God’s indwelling Spirit enables us, we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice. The believer’s transformed character is displayed through the life of the body. Psalm 19 tells us that the heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies proclaim the work of His hands. But like the heavens, we too are the work of God’s hands: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works” (Eph. 2:10). These good works are not a bill for God’s grace that has finally come due. Rather, they are the evidence of God’s gracious work in us.

The New Testament is emphatic that the physical body has a role to play in the life to come. The body’s eternal significance affects the way we use it in the present. As Christ dwells in our hearts by faith, we are “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” who is “at work within us” (Eph. 3:19–20). Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. You were bought at a price. “Therefore honor God with your bodies” (1 Cor. 6:20).

For Further Study

To learn more, read From the Grave by A. W. Tozer (Moody Publishers).